[11]. We have been unable to find any historical account of Banks and Case; but that any of the Quakers were “lewd men,” is so incredible as to need more proof than the mere assertion of Peter Pratt.
[12]. Governor Winthrop.
[13]. Not for baptizing a person, but for going to baptize a person, was Rogers arrested. “Yet,” said Gov. Saltonstall, “there never was any one that suffered on account of his different persuasion in religious matters from the body of this people.” The law against baptizing (other than by the standing order) was simply a fine for every such baptism.
[14]. Abundant proof of the prominent stand taken by John Rogers himself in behalf of religious liberty will be found not only throughout this volume but by extracts from his writings to be found in Appendix.
[15]. This “Message” of John Bolles was written when the Rogerenes were not under virulent persecution, of which there was cessation after the death of Gov. Saltonstall (1724) until the time of Mather Byles over thirty years later. See Part II.
[16]. This is an error. He became a Rogerene after the Rogerene Society had given up the Seventh Day Sabbath.
[17]. Such religious debates were common in those days between persons of different persuasions, especially ministers, elders, etc.
[18]. The fact that prim still grows abundantly upon the farm once owned and occupied by John Rogers, may be an exception worthy of note.
[19]. Apparently, Mr. McEwen judged the Puritan Sabbath to have been one and the same with the “religion of the gospel.”
[20]. Thomas Turner came to New London, as a young man, about 1721. He married Patience, daughter of John Bolles, in 1727. She died December 18, 1769, aged sixty-one. After her death he married Mary (née Harris), widow of John Waterhouse 2d, and after her death he married Isabel Whitney. His first marriage was by the regular form common with the New London Rogerenes; his second and third marriages were by the Quaker form prevalent in Quakertown at that date, and were recorded by Joseph Bolles, clerk of the Rogerene Society. See Chapter XIV. Thomas Turner lived in Montville. He died in 1791, aged ninety-two.